


movement

by loonylu



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Domestic Violence, Gen, Manipulation, benzaiten?? a ray of sunshine?? Yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:41:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21820060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loonylu/pseuds/loonylu
Summary: Benzaiten Steel is pretty sure he’s a bad person.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 199





	movement

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to lurking_umbra and PaigeLee12 for beta reading!
> 
> title from the hozier song, you know the one

Ben is pretty sure he’s not a good person. He’s not certain, but he doesn’t think a good person  _ manipulates _ as much as he does. It’s as natural as breathing by now, spinning webs around the reality of his life to keep the people around him tethered.

It’s a performance. Keeping balance, counting steps, keeping your eyes fixed forward even as the world around you spins.

Ben has known who he is for a long time. His earliest memory is running barefoot out of a house left unlocked and returning to a place that wasn’t a home any longer, a mother that was different than she used to be. Ben remembers.

Ben remembers Juno, crying and shaking on the living room carpet, remembers Ma standing over Juno’s little body, remembers feeling frozen to the spot by the door.

“Handed our lives away – “ Ma is screaming. Ben’s ears hurt. He is so small. Juno is so small and Ma is so big.

“Ma?” Ben says, just loud enough to get her attention. She swings around, wild eyed, breathing hard.

“What?” Ma says, harsh and sharp.

Ben lets his lower lip wobble. It’s not hard. “Ma, I’m scared,” he says. “Will you give me a hug?” He looks into her eyes, dark and wild and tearstained, and he does not want to hug her. He wants to get Juno and run out into the Halcyon night.

“Yes, baby,” Ma says, kneeling down and opening her arms. “Mama’s sorry. Mama’s sorry to scare you.”

Ben hugs her hard and stares at Juno over her shoulder. Juno needs no prompting to scramble to his feet, to run back to their shared bedroom. Ben doesn’t let go of Ma until he hears the bedroom door lock.

Ben pulls away from his mother and smiles wide.

That’s the first time he does it.

If the Steel family is in thirds, Ben is the middle. He’s the dam between the raging seas of Juno and Sarah. He’s unshakable. He takes everything thrown at him and puts it where it needs to go and he smiles. 

Grand jeté, he thinks. A leap, a feat of balance, all eyes on him while the stage falls away.

The first few weeks in Oldtown are hard. Ma hasn’t unpacked anything. Instead, she just sits on her box of books and chainsmokes. The smoke curls up towards the ceiling. She has a cup in her hand, sharp-smelling, and Ben knows it’s vodka. She’s staring off into space. So Ben brings her a cup of tea – boiled the water himself, and only burnt himself once – and sits next to her and tries not to cough. He tracks the moment she softens enough to let him curl up against her. Her nails rake through his hair and he does not wince.

She does not light another cigarette, so Ben takes it as a victory.

Arabesque. Look only past your own hand, stretched out in front of you, and never at the dark mass of people in the audience. A straight line forward.

Juno doesn’t speak for a while, after the Turbo incident. Whispers to Ben in the night, but nothing to the people around them. So when they start school in Oldtown, Ben smiles and introduces both of them to a teacher who does not smile as wide as their pre-k teacher in Halcyon did. It’s Ben who laughs loudly at Mick’s antics, and it’s Ben’s heart that swells when Juno and Mick play and Juno laughs audibly for the first time in months.

Nobody asks how Juno got a handprint bruise. Not Mick, not their teacher, no one, but Ben spends sleepless nights coming up with excuses anyway.

In second grade, Mr. Lowell doesn’t like Ben at all. Ben answers a question, happy lilt in his voice despite the fact that the classroom is pushing ninety degrees because the air conditioning costs too much for the school district to keep on.

“What the fuck are you so happy about?” Mr. Lowell snarls in front of Ben’s desk. His voice is rough and his breath smells like Ma’s vodka. Angry adults are all the same, Ben thinks, but his heart is pounding. “You’re an Oldtown gutter rat. None of you are going to do anything with your lives, but especially not chirpy little liars like you, and especially not your ‘clumsy’ little brother.”

A meaty finger is close to Ben’s nose, but he doesn’t flinch. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, instinctively.

“You’d better be, little rat,” Mr. Lowell says as he turns away, unsteady on his feet.

Before Ben can do anything, Juno has leapt up and socked Mr. Lowell right in the nose. Mr. Lowell flails back, catching Juno in the chest, and Juno falls backwards. His head hits the linoleum with a crack.

“Augh! Fuck!” Mr. Lowell shouts, staggering. “Give me your nose and we’ll see what I do with it, you nasty little – “

“You leave Ben alone, you fucking asshole – “ Juno is shouting now, and it’s more than Ben has heard him say in three years.

There’s more shouting then, and a few more blows, but Ben’s body has suddenly decided he isn’t there anymore, that he’s floating far away from his body in the stifling hot classroom.

Juno thinks he protects Ben, and Ben is happy to let him think that. Juno thinks of every time he walks away with a new bruise as a time he’s protected Ben, and Ben doesn’t tell him  _ no, these bruises are a result of my failure to protect you. _

Ben redirects. Takes crashing storms – not just Ma and Juno, there are other people out there that want to hurt them, he knows - and tries to keep them apart. Keeps his own guilt and fear deep underground where it cannot help or harm him.

Nobody fits roles perfectly. Nobody keeps themselves exactly in the center. It’s his own fault, really. He knows arguing with her is pointless at best and painful at worst, but he makes mistakes. A foot slips, he loses the count of the dance, and scrambles to catch up.

Third grade is when he takes his first dance class, after school in the gym - a program for underprivileged Oldtown kids, donated time by a local dance studio. Juno goes home after the last bell, and Ben lets him. Afterwards, Ben bursts in the door to the apartment, exhilarated, feeling like he’s spent two hours flying.

Ben sees the scene before him and his stomach drops like a stone.

The neck of Juno’s shirt is ripped, and Ma has him by the arm, facedown on the floor by the ratty couch Ma sleeps on at night. Ma’s grip is tight around his skinny forearm, twisting it behind him. Juno screams as Ma puts out her cigarette on his exposed shoulder blade.

“Teach you to talk back to me,” Ma says viciously, grinding it in.

Ben swallows down the nausea. Lets himself look concerned, but not overly so. “Mama?” he asks, quietly. “What are you doing?”

In those days, it was easier. A redirection for the smaller things. Forcing her to confront the bigger things. Easy to make her back down, when it mattered.

Ma looks between the boys, and lets go of Juno like she’s been stung. “I – he – Ben, I – “ she stutters, and Juno takes the opportunity to run out the front door. Probably to the sewers, Ben thinks.

Ben watches his mother crumple into tears and self-loathing, sobbing into Ben’s shoulder, and he sits next to her and he does not feel anything at all.

From then on, Ben balances dancing with the knowledge that it is selfish to dance, to feel joy instead of constant watchfulness. He can only feel like flying if he knows the ground will still be there to catch him.

Ben starts ballroom dancing. He likes ballet better, but there’s a reason he switches. When Juno complains about having to stay with Ben during dance practice, Ben rolls his eyes and insists he needs a partner.

Ben works out a deal with the owner of a local studio. Free classes in exchange for Ben sweeping, mopping, taking out the trash. It’s the best deal Ben has ever gotten and he hates himself every moment Juno is not in his line of vision. Juno is a compass, a guiding star, a purpose – dance is distraction. But he does it anyway because it feels so perfect, and Ben is a fundamentally selfish sort of person. 

The twins are twelve when Ben starts resenting this role, this part he’s assigned himself. He talks to Sasha about it, once. He figures she knows exactly what protecting a sibling is like.

Sasha shrugs. “She can mostly take care of herself. All I’ve gotta do is threaten the older kids when they try to mess with her. Teach her how to throw a punch, how to stay away from drug dealers and cops, all of that.”

“But your parents, don’t you protect her with them?” Ben asks, sitting next to her on the curb outside the Pour & Floor as they share a cheap beer. Ben can hear Juno laughing inside with Mick. “You gotta keep her safe, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, my parents keep an eye on her,” Sasha says, a little slurred after an evening of drinking. “Annie’s their responsibility. You gotta do what you gotta do, y’know?” Sasha’s eyes are unfocused.

Ben falls quiet as Sasha drains the beer.

“Wanna go back in?” Sasha asks, and Ben lets Sasha pull him to his feet.

Ben knows that Sasha’s parents don’t have money, but they like their kids just fine. There’s no secretive bruising or violent moods in the Wire household. But Ben lets Sasha’s words lull him into a wider orbit around Juno and Sarah. Watching less closely.

He tries to let himself be center stage, for a while, and not just as a barrier. He’s not as tolerant of Juno’s moods, his antics, scolding rather than soothing him when Juno gets in fights and needs bandaging. They stop behaving as shadows, for a while, and as much as it’s weird it feels good, to be his own person for a bit. It helps that Sarah is in an upswing. She works at a grocery store, and she even shows up for her shifts most of the time. There’s a paycheck, grocery shopping, lights that stay on and water that stays hot.

Ben knows it can’t last, but there’s a peace in keeping his own selfhood separate. Selfish, he thinks. Self-ish. A self that’s part of a pair, but not carbon copies. Like the two parts of a Venusian waltz, stepping in tandem.

On a hot summer afternoon when Ben and Juno are thirteen, Ben is invited by his dance teacher to be an assistant for a ballroom dance class at the Oldtown Community Center. Juno does not want to go with him. A year before, Ben would have cajoled, teased, – manipulated – until Juno agreed to come with him. But he’s trying to trust Juno, trying not to show how much he fundamentally does not trust his family members to take care of themselves and not fall away into black holes of despair. So he doesn’t. He lets Juno go.

Annie Wire dies. He let Juno go, and Annie dies, and Ben understands that he doesn’t even know how to be a bad person correctly because if he’s going to be a liar, be manipulative, then what’s the point if he can’t keep anyone safe.

It would be easier to hate his mother, Ben thinks, if she was all bad. She’s not. When the sun goes down on the Oldtown munitions factory, swarming with HCPD officers losing hope of finding a tiny girl in an industrial maze, Ben watches Sarah’s hands rest spider-like on Juno’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

Ben watches as some of Juno’s tension melts despite himself.

Ben may be manipulative, may be terrible, but Annie Wire is missing and almost certainly dead. So Ben steps forward and joins the embrace. They walk home, all three of them, one of Sarah’s little monsters under each of her arms. 

“Let’s go home,” Ma says, and Juno nods.

Things get worse, after that. Ma loses her job, stops paying bills, starts taking little white pills one after the other. Juno gets angrier as the twins grow. Ma’s not very tall, and as soon as Juno can look her in the eye he starts yelling back at her. The apartment, dark and smelling of garbage, becomes a battlefield.

Ben can’t stay away. It’s the eye of his own personal storm, he thinks, or maybe his spotlight. Plates smashing against the wall inches from his head, screaming insults in the dead of night, Juno’s suddenly-deeper voice growling back - Ben has the power. He can defuse Sarah, he can give Juno cover to run off into the night, he can nobly clean up from their fights with such quiet disapproval that they vow, at least for a while, to never do it again. 

All eyes on him. Releve, releve, turn, and smile. 

Juno starts disappearing. Starts shrugging when Ben asks him where he spent the night. Juno reeks of smoke and sour beer, and doesn’t smile when Ben tells him he smells like the Pour and Floor. Tugs down his sleeves when he catches Ben looking.

Ben wants to say,  _ take me with you.  _ Wants to say,  _ i don’t want to be with her here either but i have to, you know that.  _

But Ben smiles instead. Tells Juno to have fun. “If I’m asleep when you get back, meet me at the dance studio tomorrow at eleven? I need a partner to choreograph this new thing, and Josue has to leave at ten thirty.”

Juno quirks a tiny smile. Maybe not the galaxy’s best, but Ben’s favorite. “Yeah, Ben, I’ll be there. Don’t wait up.” 

Then Juno is gone, out the window, and Ben feels the crushing fear he always feels when Juno is out of sight. It’s like he’s turning, over and over, trying not to get dizzy by setting his eyes on the fixed point of his brother. 

It’s his own fault. It really is. Bleary, tired, he goes out to get a glass of water at one in the morning. His mother is awake, chainsmoking in the dark, and when Ben turns on the light he knows she’s not well. It’s his fault for being in the way, standing too close, keeping the attention on himself.

In the light of half-past-eleven, the bruises are pretty stark. Ben takes a break, gets his water bottle, and prods his bruised cheekbone. His sides are bad, purple and black and sore, but Ben’s pretty sure his ribs aren’t broken, so that’s a plus. Josue hadn’t said anything about it, which Ben appreciates. 

Predictably, Juno flips his shit. 

“I’m going to kill her,” Juno says, and Ben really hopes Juno does not punch the mirrors lining the dance studio. 

“Can you please just help me choreograph this?” Ben asks, stretching his leg against the barre. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Yes it is a big deal!” Juno bellows. “She -” 

“Kicked me around a bit. She did the same to you last week! What, you can take it and I can’t, Super Steel?”

“Look, Ben, I can handle it now, okay? I’ve met some people, they helped me get something to defend myself. We don’t have to let her do this anymore, Ben. It’s only three years till we can get out of here, and then - “ 

Ben feels cold all over. “Juno. What do you have?” 

Juno reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small laser pistol. Hands it to Ben, handle first, near-reverent in the silence of the dance studio. Ben takes it. The plastic is warm to the touch.

Juno breaks the silence. “I’m a… real good shot, Benten.” 

Ben nods. 

The spotlight is center stage. First position, tour en l’aire. Hover a moment, weightless, before crashing back down. 

Without Ben’s permission, Ben is talking. Cajoling, guilting, manipulating. It’s not safe to have a blaster, if you get caught you won’t be able to join the police academy, Ma’s never used her blaster, I bet hers doesn’t even work,  _ what if I get caught in the crossfire, Juno.  _ It’s so easy, now, to pull together a hundred threads, bits of muscle memory, and execute the performance of the century.

Juno wipes away a tear roughly. He agrees to keep the blaster out of the apartment. “Ben, she’s going to do something really bad someday, you know?” he asks, fear and anger warring in his voice.

Ben smiles. A perfect bow, back straight, arms just so. He can keep them all safe. He can. 

A month after they both turn eighteen, Juno gets accepted to the HCPD academy. It’s always been Juno’s dream, always been what they whispered to each other in the dead of night. Ben, a dancer, owning his own studio and teaching children to pirouette; Juno, action hero, kicking down doors and rescuing people like Andromeda. The dreams felt big, felt unattainable, like two hungry and bruised kids had no right to want what they don’t deserve.

Ben feels the loss, deep in the pit of his stomach, but he jumps around the room with Juno and they yell because Ma isn’t home to stop them. Juno ships out in two weeks, the letter says, and that’s almost no time at all, and Ben feels his panic rising. 

Who is Benzaiten, without Juno? Two halves of a whole, two thirds of a home, a dancer spinning across a ballroom floor with no partner to ground them. 

Juno says, they liked my sharpshooting, when I met them. Juno says, I can’t believe this. Juno says, I’m going to be a cop. Juno says, we can leave Ma behind and not deal with any of this. Juno says, we can get a little place downtown near the academy. Juno says, you can teach at one of the fancy uptown studios. 

The world shifts, a little, settles back down in a new form. Like sewing new ribbons on his battered pointe shoes. It doesn’t change what the situation is. It just makes it different. 

There is still a pile of bills on the counter. Still dirty dishes in the sink and roaches in the bathroom cabinet. Ma’s vodka is on the coffee table, a crushed pill beside it. Ben needs to figure out where she’s keeping the laser cards for the blaster she keeps in her purse. Ben needs to buy eggs and pay the electric bill. Ben cannot run off into the sunset. 

Ben smiles, a small Juno-like thing, and says nothing as Juno describes a life far away from Sarah Steel. Ben knows there will be yelling, later, tears, and pain, as Juno realizes that Ben has no intention of coming with him, no intention of sharing a tiny apartment and dancing uptown. For now, Ben lets the smile break over Juno’s face, lets Juno shine like the sun, dance in the spotlight, feel his own version of flying. 

Lying by omission is another tally mark against his character. Another perfect step executed with bad intentions. Another way he is a bad brother, a bad person. Maybe, with Juno finally safe, finally far from Ma, Ben will be able to breathe, to let himself learn how to care for people without manipulating and lying and desperation. 

There will be time later, Ben thinks, to learn the steps to a new dance. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> bruh i love ben steel so much 
> 
> come say hi at healingsteel.tumblr.com


End file.
